Man Arrested After Crash at Rocky Mountain National Park Injures Three

A man was arrested after recklessly driving through Rocky Mountain National Park to evade police, eventually leading to a crash that injured three.

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, USA / Justin Ortega/Unsplash

It was a fairly normal day at the Rocky Mountain National Park until a 23-year-old male sped his car through the Grand Lake entrance and drove recklessly down US Highway 34 on Sunday, September 8 per a news release from park officials.

He has now been identified as Wayde Thyfault of Hudson, a small town in northeast Colorado with a population of just under 2,000. He has now been placed under custody.

Thyfault ignored attempts to get him to pull over. Rather than make the situation even worse, law enforcement backed off their pursuit.

The law enforcement rangers at Rocky Mountain National Park were joined by the Estes Park Police Department and Larimer Country Sheriff's Office as they tried to get the man to slow down.

Eventually, near Deer Ridge Junction, afters speeding through strip sticks that had been placed, the driver collided with another vehicle. That vehicle had three people inside it that all had to be transported to Estes Park Health via ambulance with one passenger dealing with critical injuries.

That crash only slowed down the suspect as he still managed to flee the scene with a head injury.

A shelter-in-place alert was sent out to the local area's residents as he headed into the town of Estes Park. It was lifted around one o'clock early Monday morning.

The incident is suspected to be connected to a felony burglary case that was still being investigated out of Grand County.

As pointed out by Rebecca Powell of the Coloradoan, court records revealed that he already has an open case of vehicular eluding, reckless driving and obstructing a peace officer in Weld County from last month.

Thyfault has been added to the Larimer County Jail inmate database but no further sentencing information available, so it is currently up in the air everything that he is being charged with,

There also have not been any updates given on the state of the three passengers that were involved in the collision and were brought to an ambulance. It's a tough situation given that they were put into a scenario that's nearly impossible to prepare for.

The eventual impact of the injuries could make things worse than they already are for Thyfault right now.